Page:Field Poems of Childhood.djvu/68

 As if, in playful mood, it would

Tickle the truant if it could,

You chuckling brook—you saucy brook?

Or is it you no longer know—

You fickle brook—

The honest friend of long ago?

The years that kept us twain apart

Have changed my face, but not my heart—

Many and sore those years, and yet

I fancied you could not forget

That happy time, my playmate brook!

Oh, sing again in artless glee,

My little brook,

The song you used to sing for me—

The song that's lingered in my ears

So soothingly these many years;

My grief shall be forgotten when

I hear your tranquil voice again

And that sweet song, dear little brook!